Re: 301/302

"Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu> wrote:
>It would seem to me, that if 302 really means "see other" in practice,
>then what should be done is change the definition of 302 to "see other",
>define 303 as "same as 302" perhaps including the historical reasons,
>and define 307 as a temporary redirect.  Deprecating a code that is in
>active use is a bad idea.

	Klaus' proprosal was that 302 mean "The UA can use See Other,
but the script can't count on that, because of earlier RFCs".  In the
world of statistics a p < .05 and by now p < .01 probability that the
UA will respect prior RFCs and not switch to GET can be treated as
certainty, so for someone like me it's "just" an issue of what string
to use following the status number.  I wasn't clear, though, on exactly
what could or could not be changed without precluding that we MAY
move from Proposed to Draft Standard, and concern about your statement
on that issue appears to have been part of Klaus' proposal.  


>BTW, all status codes are HTTP/1.x defined.  A proxy cannot do translation
>of a status code, so basing a response on the received protocol version
>won't work in the presence of proxies.

	If a POST is converted to GET, which by definition is safe,
can the proxy just act on it on behalf of the browser?  Only the
307 for an unsafe method really needs to go back to the browser for
a confirmation or cancel.  Let's extend this question to 305 (and
306 if that gets past LAST CALL).  If the method is safe, should
the proxy act on it?  If the proxy is obligatory (e.g., a firewall),
the user otherwise is up the creek without a paddle.

	What Scott wrote about all 3xx statuses degrading to 300
is food for though as well.  I hadn't thought about 300 in conjunction
with unsafe methods.
				Fote

=========================================================================
 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
 MACRIDES@SCI.WFBR.EDU         222 Maple Avenue, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
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Received on Thursday, 4 September 1997 10:33:39 UTC